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Unity — St. Paul’s Way

Becki Sykes gallops through Galatians

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Galatians 3 v 25–28

In this letter Paul tackles, amongst others, the issue of circumcision. At the time of writing the Galatians were plagued by Judaisers proclaiming that, to be a true Christian one must observe special practices and rituals, such as circumcision. Paul is desperate to assure the Galatians that, in living under Christ, they were already justified and had no need to obtain God’s favour by being circumcised.

For us today the ritual of circumcision has given way to other practices. How often do we judge the spirituality of other Christians by their more superficial outward signs? Do they pray or sing in tongues? Do they raise their hands when worshipping? Do they pray long prayers filled with biblical imagery of crowns and lambs and blood?

None of these of course are wrong, just as circumcision was never an evil practice, but one ordained by God. What is wrong is the commonly held belief that these actions are prerequisites of being a Christian, or indicative of how ‘good’ a Christian we are.

Paul declares that in God’s eyes race, caste and gender are equal. So too are the many varying methods of Christian worship and denomination. “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” Galatians 5 v 6

True worship is what God desires and this comes from the heart. True prayer is irrespective of the size of vocabulary which one possesses. Everyone should be free to pray as they choose, worship as they choose and learn about God in their own way. If it makes no difference to God — who are we to condemn one way or another?

What is important is that our prayers should reflect what we mean, our attitudes should reflect our prayers and as Christians, our lives should be shaped by what we believe.

Becki Sykes

Last modified: 25th November 2005